October 11th, 2007
A look inside Chinese censorship
How does China maintain its pervasive system of Internet censorship? A report from Reporters Without Borders, entitled “China: Journey To The Heart Of Internet Censorship,” reveals some details of how the bureaucracy clamps down on dissent, controls the flow of information and distributes propaganda, Information Week reports.
Much of the information in the report was provided by an anonymous technician in the government’s Internet sector. The report was timed for the start of the Chinese Communist Party’s national congress.
According to the report, China has three separate agencies involved in information control: the Internet Propaganda Administrative Bureau, the Bureau of Information and Public Opinion, and the Internet Bureau. In Beijing, a powerful local government agency also exists: the Beijing Internet Information Administrative Bureau.
In China, commercial sites must be licensed by the Internet Propaganda Administrative Bureau, which entitles them to provide official news reports but not to engage in independent reporting.
The Bureau of Information and Public Opinion conducts weekly meetings with commercial sites to discuss online public opinion and reports on the meetings to Communist Party officials. The Internet Bureau exercises ideological control.
Chinese supervisory bodies often use instant messaging and text messages sent via mobile phones to communicate quickly with commercial websites. The purpose is to tell them which articles or comments are not to be published, and which events or issues are taboo.
One incident that led to a section closure involved the Web site Netease, which published a 2006 poll asking that if their readers were reborn, would they want to be Chinese again. Of the 10,000 respondents, 64% said they would not want to be Chinese. The main reasons were being Chinese is not honorable, you can’t buy a house in China, happiness is too inaccessible, you can’t crack jokes in China, and you can’t see good cartoons.
RPF recommends Chinese users use a proxy server to block their IP addresses from censors. For posting sensitive articles, the Chinese should use smaller sites outside of Beijing.
